A small-time drug dealer resorted to violence instead of paying off a $6,100 debt, shooting another man with a pistol-grip shotgun, a judge was told Friday.

Reading from a statement of agreed facts, Crown prosecutor Ryan Jenkins said Calgarian Michael McGill was greeted with a shotgun blast to his stomach when he thought he was getting badly needed cash returned to him.

Chayce Anthony Krause pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of discharging a firearm with intent to endanger life in connection with the New Year’s Eve, 2013, shooting of McGill.

Krause, then 19, had originally been charged with attempted murder.

Jenkins said McGill owned and operated a small landscaping firm at the time and lived with his wife, Meghan Clarke, and their infant son.

He also was a recreational drug user and sold small quantities of marijuana to his close friends, the prosecutor said.

In the fall of 2013, a work colleague introduced McGill, then 33, to Krause for the purpose of purchasing marijuana, and the victim bought drugs from him multiple times prior to Dec. 31, 2013.

Jenkins told Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Suzanne Bensler that in early December, Krause convinced McGill that he had found a great deal and could get a pound of marijuana for half its normal street value.

Although skeptical, McGill eventually agreed to loan him $3,000 — money he expected returned in two to four days.

After not seeing any return, McGill was approached by Krause about a week and a half later and was asked for an additional $3,100, Jenkins said.

“McGill was desperate to recover his initial $3,000 and agreed,” the prosecutor said.

Around 4 p.m. on Dec. 31, Krause texted McGill that he had the money, and just after 9 p.m. sent a second text that he was on the way and they should meet in the alley behind the victim’s Athlone Road S.E. home.

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